First Child Guinea Pigs…

This is me. Postbaby 7 weeks. I haven’t blogged in quite some time, but I had this indelible urge to write again lately. I know in a short month, I will have to prepare to take on the end of my Master’s program, so I’m voraciously doing some leisure reading and beginning to chronicle my journey as a mom of two.

My daughter loves her brother. Yet, she has shown signs of normal regression. Wanting to try all of the babies things. Needing extra attention. Oh gosh, the baby talk… cute until it gets annoying. Hahhahaha. Yes, I keep it real.

At the beginning when I got home with the baby from the hospital, nothing about my daughter’s behavior annoyed me. But set in sleep deprivation, the constant “mommy, mommy, mommy!!! Can I tell you something?” Me: “can you tell me without saying, ‘can I tell you something?'” haha, the annoying sound of the pump machine at night, homework, life, taking care of a newborn… oh, did I mention SLEEP DEPRIVATION??? then my patience becomes nonexistent. But I am praying and hoping (although I heard from my friend that “hope is not a strategy) that I find that place of reassuring guidance, love, and patience that my daughter needs right now. I hope I have the fortitude to learn to balance my needs FIRST without feeling GUILT.

This is when I began experiencing empathy for the first child. I’m the second and the last in my family. I wish parenting came with instructions or at least pictures to show you which is the right way up or down. 🙂 I say this, because recently, my husband and I have been having warfare with our daughter during homework time. Mind you, my husband is a great instructor who is energetic and fun, but even he gets worn down when my daughter for the 100th time says “N is a U.” Yes, they look similar, but that’s no excuse to get it wrong more than 20x in my opinion. Yes, I can be a bit tough but I have been way too liberal in my child-rearing of her till this point (great she just came in here and found her bike we were supposed to give her on her birthday!!!). I always allowed for her to just putz around and do things at her own will. Well now, we are interviewing and testing for private schools, so now the tides are changing. Something in me got triggered. I realized I can’t be lazy to raise a successful child.

Right now, I’m trying to analyze what kind of learner my daughter is. In the process, I have screamed my head off because my expectations are so high. I keep telling myself in a Finding Nemo like trance, “she’s never seen this… she’s never seen this.” But I can’t use that forever. SHE HAS SEEN THE ALPHABETS for at least two years now!!! Hahaha.

But at the end of the day, I come to conclude that none of this has anything to do with my daughter. It has to do with me. My demons. I have to disconnect from my past and embrace the woman I am today. I’m no longer the kid that was average in school because no one encouraged anything in me other than to be pretty. More than anything, I wanted to be viewed as “smart” like my sister. Actually, I knew I was probably smarter than my sister (I think my parents knew it too… sorry hyung)… but I never tried, because things came easily for me to just pass. I suppose this is my biggest regret. I never lived up to my full potential or got to discover what I was good at or even excellent at. I was a quitter. I never looked to the end of the road to discover that hard work and effort pays hundreds folds more than quitting. That discovery only comes with age and wisdom.

I’m fortunate though. I’m not my immigrant parents who couldn’t spend the time with their kids even if they wanted to because they were working hard in a foreign land to provide for their children. I have the ability to provide the opportunities for my children that my parents did not possess. What my kids do with these opportunities are my responsibility until it becomes time for them to bear the burden of the cross on their shoulders and learn to use what weapons and lessons I’ve given them into their lives on their own accord.

I will write about what I learned about myself during homework time in my next blog. Thanks for reading. Happy New Year.

I highly encourage you to read a book called Nurture Shock by Bronson and Merryman. It goes into some common misconceptions we have about babies and gives some really useful advice about child rearing.

One of the things I remember is that you shouldn’t say “you’re smart” to your child but rather to say “you tried really hard.” At a certain point it doesn’t matter how smart you are or are not, but it’s how hard you try and not give up. They suggest that by telling your child that the effort is what you value from an early age, they start valuing that as well.

Nice to read your thoughts, Christine. Self-reflection and soliciting feedback are both helpful for us as learners and parents. Also, I think that you are being a positive role model just by continuing to work hard and study to achieve your goals. Make sure to share what you are going through with your kids and don’t hide how much work it is. Showing them that hard work is how you make progress toward your dreams will have a much greater impact than the average parent’s “do as I say, not as I do” approach.

I second the Nurture Shock recommendation, btw. And following up on Tawney’s comment above, Po Bronson originally covered the inverse power of praise, based on Carol Dweck’s work, in a New York magazine article, http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ . The topic is also covered in both Nurture Shock and Dweck’s own book, Mindsets. Both are must reads, imho.